


Signing a paper, saving a life

by Galrafloofandlove



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, Hospitals, Implied Thace/Ulaz, Inplied Krolia/Kolivan, M/M, Stubborn Keith (Voltron), Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 10:24:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17723390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galrafloofandlove/pseuds/Galrafloofandlove
Summary: It all started with a dull pang in his abdomen.It hurt to push on the pain area, but Keith just assumed the flesh was sore. He did heavy lifting for a living, it was a common side effect.Until one night, nearly a week after the pain started, he woke up in a bleary haze and hurled off the side of the bed.





	Signing a paper, saving a life

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a convo in a server, y'all know who you are. 
> 
> I haven't written Klance in a while, so excuse me with my bad writing.
> 
> For clarification, Thace and Ulaz adopted Keith when he was young, and he met Krolia, his real mom and her boyfriend, Kolivan, after he finished college.

It all started with a dull pang in his abdomen. 

It hurt to push on the pain area, but Keith just assumed the flesh was sore. He did the heavy lifting for a living, it was a common side effect.

Until one night, nearly a week after the pain started, he woke up in a bleary haze and hurled off the side of the bed. 

The sound of his puking immediately woke Lance up. Lance was a pretty light sleeper anyway, Keith could do as much as mumble in his slumber and Lance would be awake at once.

“Uh...Keith?” Lance asked with a gentle, quiet tone as Keith's phone buzzed with a new message, time displaying it was nearly two am.  
“Help.” Keith rasped out, nausea overwhelming his thoughts as he discarded his lunch and breakfast over onto the carpet.  
“Should I call an ambulance?” Lance asked with renewed urgency, tone taking up that of a panicked partner, like Keith was bleeding out or he was just shot or just had a heart attack. 

“P-please don't.” Keith squeaked and whined, clutching his stomach as waves of intense cramps shot through him. 

The world started to grow blurry, his head spinning as he heard the distance dial of their house phone.

Keith just laid his head down on the fluffy pillow, letting spots of white dot his vision until it was all he could see. 

~~~~~~

He came to with a gentle beeping invading his ears. 

He vaguely registered the tubes in both of his nostrils, the light paper hospital gown that left his skin freezing underneath. 

And he recognizes the sharpened ache of the needles taped onto the back of his left hand from when he was little and Thace insisted he needed testing for high blood pressure immediately and escorted him promptly from the middle school nurse's office to the closest hospital nearly forty-five minutes away. 

“Hey, look who's finally awake.” Lance taunts with a playful smile, looking down at Keith's unmoving figure. 

His lower abdomen still hurts like hell, although he feels calmer, like a wave of stress has been lifted off his shoulder. 

Probably whatever heavy pain medication they pumped into him talking. 

Keith tries to move his lips, but the feeling fades to dull static. Everything feels so distant, like if he reached his hand out to try and touch his husband he would somehow be on the moon or a million light-years away, slipping just right from Keith's grasp, leaving him alone to his own devices once again. 

“You're gonna be alright. Doc just needs your approval for surgery and you're all set.” Lance said, grabbing a light pink plastic cup filled with enough water to take a kitten lick, it seemed.  
The portion was small, but Keith greedily gulped it down when it was handed to him anyway. His throat felt drier than the desert where he grew up, drier than the rough sand scaling the bottoms of his feet as he went out playing as a young boy, unknowing of the world around him. 

It wasn't until a man in a white lab coat entered the room a moment later did Keith realize what Lance had said. 

“Mr. McClain, how are you feeling?” The doctor asked with a far too jolly smile, no doubt faking it. There's not much happiness in a hospital, Keith quickly realized when he was still very young, but old enough to know what losing someone meant. 

“Awful.” Keith responded dully, working up enough energy to speak as Lance helped him adjust the bed so he could sit up without his husband constantly having to keep him upright with a slim hand on his back. 

“That's to be expected, I'm afraid.” If the doctor was trying to make Keith feel better, he was failing miserably. From Lance being vague on what kind of surgery Keith needed, or what they would do to him, and the heavy tone the doctor was using, Keith could logically infer he had about a day to live. 

“It seems you have a severe case of appendicitis. The appendix may have already ruptured by our earlier scans, and there's an abscess, or a small pocket of puss, around your appendix area that needs to be removed as well.” The doctor flipped through another sheet on his clipboard, detaching the pen and setting the clipboard on the edge of Keith's hospital bed.  
“I just need you to sign this and we can get started to plan our surgery path.” The doctor said with another fake smile, and Lance moved the clipboard so it was sitting on Keith's lap. 

“No thanks.” Keith rejected, crossing his arms over his chest, crinkling the hospital gown. 

Lance looked at him like he'd just denied the chance to meet an angel. 

“Are you...are you kidding me, babe? I know you're scared of needles, but this is overboard.” Lance stated in disgust. 

“You're extremely lucky I haven't ripped my IV out yet.” Keith taunted back. “By the way, when can I be released and out of here? I feel fine.” 

“You're on strong pain medication, Mr. McClain. Your brain may be feeling faint and floaty, and your body may feel foreign for an hour or two after surgery, but after that you'll be just fine.” The doctor assures as Lance left for the hallway without another word. 

“Just like, give me antibiotics. If it's infected, that'll help and I'll be out of here in no time.” Keith continued to argue.  
“I'm afraid with your case, it's not possible for it to be fully treated with antibiotics. We need to undergo surgery before it bursts.” The doctor tried his best to explain, although Keith held his ground firmly.  
“So once it bursts everything will be good. If I don't need this organ anyway, then it bursting shouldn't do anything.” Keith started to feel the familiar stabbing pain in his lower abdomen, wincing and holding the area as the doctor looked about ready to just quit his job. 

“Krolia said stop being an idiot and get the surgery. I texted your dads.” Lance came back in and announced, sitting in the barely cushioned chair the hospital provided for family and other visitors.  
“Krolia doesn't own me. I can do what I want.” Keith protested as the doctor wrote something else down on the clipboard.  
“She said get the surgery at the hospital or she'll tie you down to the kitchen counter and open you up with Kolivan's chainsaw.” Lance seemed uncomfortable even repeating the words said to him not but a few minutes ago.  
“That's an empty threat and I know it.” Keith gave Lance a side-eyed glance. 

The vibrations on Lance's phone suddenly started to buzz like crazy, and his husband nearly dropped his brand new phone onto cold hospital tile. 

“Thace says you're an idiot, Ulaz said he'd just sign off for you to be sedated and prepped for surgery.”  
Keith could tell Lance was reading them word for word. Thace and Ulaz adopted him at the age of eight, they all knew each other pretty well by now. 

“Well, too bad. I don't care what anyone says, I'm not getting surgery.” Keith staked his claim once more, and Lance just rolled his eyes like a wave over the ocean. 

“This is fatal, Keith. Don't be a dumbass and get the surgery, okay?” Keith could tell Lance was trying to be playful in his teasing, but Keith was really too absorbed in getting out of surgery by any means necessary.

~~~~~~~

Later that night, Keith was reading something on his phone when the doctor entered again, a nurse in tow. 

“We're just changing your IV bags, Keith.” The doctor explained. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Keith brushed it off, continuing to scan the article in front of his face until the bag was changed. 

Keith didn't think much of it at first, until his limbs grew numb and he lost control of the movements in his hands and fingers. Lance moved Keith's cell phone to the nightstand for later use. 

“It's gonna feel weird, babe. Thace, Ulaz and I signed to put you under IV sedation so you wouldn't fight when they get you ready for surgery.” Lance admitted, and Keith stared in betrayal- or, whatever expression his face made with his limited control. 

Everything around him was a blur, up into an oxygen mask being strapped to the back of his head and the outward command of “breathe in”. 

Keith obeyed, and fell hard into the land of sleep in a matter of seconds. 

~~~~~~

He was certain he got stabbed, was his first thought when he woke up again. 

It can't be anything but a stab wound. It hurts far too much to be anything else- 

“I'm so proud of you, babe.” His ears took in the waves of sound, giving the spoken information to his brain nearly three times as slow as usual. 

“Y-yeah.” Keith rasped out, lying face up on the paper materials nearly everything in the hospital was made of. 

“Get some rest, you deserve it.” Lance reassures, tucking a baby plush toy of a duck under the covers. 

Probably from the gift shop. 

“Will you forgive me if I give you this?” Lance asked genuinely, as if Keith could ever stay mad at Lance. Something about him...Keith couldn't just drop him like that. He was special. A fact he was reminds of every time he remembers their wedding day. 

“Mhm.” Keith mumbled, closing his eyes and holding the tiny duck close. 

He could forgive Lance for signing him off to surgery. He realizes now it was only for his own good, at least now that it’s done and over with and the stitches cannot be reversed.  
While it hurts now, at least he's not causing a lifetime of pain for Lance based on loss. 

He smiled as he drifted off into more sweet dreams, dreaming of marshmallows clouds and neon starfish and quiet “love you”s said in a rush out the door or during a night all to themselves. 

Keith knows how to reject help, and Lance knows how to save a life. 

A match made in Heaven, truly.

**Author's Note:**

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